Barbie and Oppenheimer…. which is the one with the plastic boobies again?

Piers Morgan said if he made a movie that treats women the way Barbie treats men he would be executed. But Christopher Nolan made that movie. And he was awarded best director.

The Golden Globes were held this past Sunday.

By way of introducing the biggest movies of the year the host Jo Koy said,

“Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies.”

Don’t you worry, we’ll return to the Barbie portion of that delightful comment momentarily.

But as it happens, I watched Oppenheimer for the first time last Friday night. So let’s talk about this Pulitzer-Prize worthy movie first.

I had heard the rave reviews. I had heard filmmaker Paul Schrader call the film the best and most important film of the century!¹ I was pumped to finally see it!

I started the film with high expectations and an open mind, but as the movie progressed my brows got more and more furrowed, my eyes became more and more rolly, my disgruntled snorts became more and more disgruntled.

What caused my snorty demeanor you ask?

It began 21 minutes into the movie when we hear a woman speak for the first time. It was nice to finally hear a woman’s voice, but the brows furrowed when less than a minute later the first speaking woman of the film was naked atop the leading man.

They continued to furrow when virtually every piece of dialogue out of a woman’s mouth served to support to the leading man.

me while watching Oppenheimer

I quickly realized the women in Oppenheimer were textbook cases of the PDG²: Patriarchy’s Dream Girl. The role of a PDG is simply to offer unfailing support to her man while he does whatever the hell he wants. No conditions necessary. (Also no personality or desires necessary.)

In Oppenheimer’s case this included cheating on his wife with his ex, never be present to help his wife (when she could clearly use some), oh and inventing the thing that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Despite all that, Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty, played by Emily Blunt, supports her man no matter what and asks for nothing at all.

This is poignantly depicted in the scene when Oppenheimer first admits to his wife that he cheated on her. Seconds after this confession, without a trace of tears or anger, his wife’s exact quote is, “Now you pull yourself together. You know people here depend on you.”

I don’t care that you cheated on me, the real important thing here is your career.

I actually had to pause the movie after this line to let out a disbelieving guffaw. And to tell my husband that if he ever cheats on me, it will not be his career I am concerned about.

By far Emily Blunt’s longest screen time is when she is in court defending her husband.

Florence Pugh’s character fairs even worse. Despite the fact that in real life Jean Tatlock was an accomplished pediatric psychiatrist and the fact that she was actually the one who refused to marry Robert after he proposed twice, in the movie she is depicted as little more than a hopelessly devoted Oppenheimer sex doll.

Of her 5 minutes and 48 seconds of total screen time, 4 of those are spent naked.³

source: Daily Mail

Barbie and Oppenheimer…. which is the one with the plastic boobies again???

But yes, circling back to the Golden Globes opening monologue, Oppenheimer is a very important historical biopic. Barbie is just a girlie movie about a doll.

Just for funsies let’s take a look at some stats of how each movie treats the opposite sex.

---

Oppenheimer, a movie that film critic Humayun Arif called the landmark film of the century for filmmakers runs for 180 minutes. 21 of those minutes include a woman in conversation. That’s 12% of the movie.⁴

Barbie, a movie that Piers Morgan called “an assault on all men”⁵ runs for 114 minutes. Around 59 of those minutes include a man in conversation. That’s 51% of the movie.⁶

Oppenheimer, marketed as a movie for everybody, has a cast of 115 people. 13 of those are women. That’s 11% female.⁷ Barely a tenth.

Barbie, marketed as a movie for girls, has a cast of 70 people. 27 of those are men. That’s 39% male. Almost half.

Oppenheimer, “based on a Pulitzer-Prize winning book,” brings the first woman on screen 21 minutes into the film. She is nude and having sex less than a minute later.

Barbie, “based on a plastic doll with big boobies,” brings the first man on 7 minutes into the film. There are no sex scenes or nudity.

---

The irony of course is that Barbie was trying to hold up a mirror to how society actually treats women by flipping the script and treating men that way.

So based on the winner for best film of the year, if Barbie wanted to be an actual mirror, it would have an 11% male cast and only show men on screen for 12% of the movie. Ken would have no personality, no character arc and would have been naked his first minute after appearing on screen. Then he would have remained naked for the rest of his 4 minutes of screen time. (cAn yOu ImAgiNe tHe OuTraGe??)

Barbie was trying to make a point about how differently society treats men and women. Oppenheimer was just trying to make a movie. Given these goals, the discrepancy in representation of the two genders in these films is WILD!⁸

Surely Nolan would be slammed for his portrayal of women and Gerwig praised for her portrayal of men?

You would think so wouldn’t you?

And yet…. without seeking them out this year I have come across dozens and dozens of critiques of Greta Gerwig’s portrayal of men in Barbie. From Tiktok. From my Google homepage. From my real life conversations.

I remember when Ben Shapiro burned barbies live in protest, when Jack Posobiec called the film “the most anti-male film ever made,” when tens of thousands called for the boycott of not just the movie but barbies in general based on its depiction of men.⁹

My shock in watching Oppenheimer was precisely because I had come across exactly ZERO critiques of Christopher Nolan’s representation of women until I sought them out myself to write this article.

They were there but they were infinitesimal compared to the national outrage against Gerwig.

Piers Morgan said of the Barbie movie “If I made a movie that treated women the way that Barbie treats men, people would want me executed.”

But Christopher Nolan DID make a movie that arguably treats women WORSE than the way Barbie treats men.

And we did not execute him.

We awarded him best director.

Oppenheimer pulled away the most awarded film of the Golden Globes this year. Winning for best film, best director, best leading actor, best supporting actor and best score.

The only Golden Globe Gerwig came home with was “cinematic and box office achievement.” Meaning it made the most money. In other words, every single award that COULD have been snubbed from Gerwig was. This one was based on pure numbers and could have gone to no one else.¹⁰

Ok, but this is just two films, not indicative of anything more

I wish this was just a random case of two movies.

Alas, let’s look at more numbers.

Despite the number of men and women in the world being roughly equal, in the most popular films of 2022, 65.4% of the speaking roles went to men, leaving 34.6% to women.¹¹

In other words- there are two male characters for every one female- a ratio that has remained shockingly stable over the past 70 years of film.

source: Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

Ever heard of the Bechtel Test? It’s a very low standard to measure female representation in movies. To pass a movie only needs to have two women characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. Not too hard.

Oppenheimer does not pass the test.

Two women are never seen talking to each other, and almost never say anything that isn’t about a man.

Barbie, on the other hand, does pass the reverse Bechtel test.

How many movies pass the Bechtel test might you ask? Surely the majority for such a low standard?

Less than half.

LESS. THAN. HALF. of the world’s most popular 1200 movies in the past 40 years include two women talking about something other than a man.¹²

By contrast, a whopping 95% of films pass the reverse Bechtel test where two men talk to each other about something other than a woman.¹³

As of 2022, 85% of movies feature more male than female characters and only 7% had more female than male characters.

And this despite the fact that movies that pass the Bechtel test make more money.¹⁴

In conclusion

Jo Koy, allow me to re-write your joke.

Barbie is the highest grossing film of the year, Warner Brothers’ highest grossing movie of all time and the highest grossing movie ever by a female director. Its insightful portraiture of our patriarchal society is sure to be studied and discussed for decades to come.

Oppenheimer is a war movie that depicts women as plastic dolls with boobies.

---

non-spiritual non-direction is a community funded project. I deeply, deeply appreciate all my patrons. If you would like to add your support, you can do so below:

1. SOURCE

2. You may remember depictions of the PDG from performances such as Lin Manuel Miranda’s portrayal of Eliza Hamilton. While Hamilton is never home despite Eliza begging for him to “take a break,” cheats on her, tells the entire world he cheated on her, sent their son to his death and died in a pointless duel, Eliza stays with him, forgives him and devotes her entire life to hailing his legacy.

3. SOURCE

4. SOURCE

5. SOURCE

6. SOURCE

7. SOURCE

8. To anyone who would say Christopher Nolan wasn’t trying to make a movie about gender equality, he was trying to make a historically accurate movie about Robert Oppenheimer. There just weren’t a lot of women in the rooms he was in. It’s just history.

Actually there were plenty of women in the room at Los Alamos. Please go learn all about them in this article Justice for the women of Oppenheimer.

I’m inclined to agree with journalist Radhika Seth when she said,

“I’m not asking for a rewriting of history in which these women are placed at the center of this seismic event, but could a three-hour-long film not have dedicated a few minutes to giving these figures even a minimal level of believability, when it lavishes so much time and attention on Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr.’s Lewis Strauss, Matt Damon’s Leslie Groves, and Josh Hartnett’s Ernest Lawrence?”

9. SOURCE

10. Billie Eilish did win best song though

11. SOURCE

12. A 2022 study found that 49.6% of the 1,200 most popular movies globally over the previous 40 years passed the Bechtdel test.

13. SOURCE

14. SOURCE